Exploring in Elite: Dangerous

Elite: Dangerous doesn't get enough mileage out of its gorgeous planets. There's little reason to go visit them. Trade is done through stations, mining is done in asteroid belts (and ring systems, admittedly), and exploration can be done from 5+ light-seconds away from your target.

Anyway, here's some eye-candy of the first earthlike world I discovered, officially designated "Col 285 Sector AF-P c6-1 4". I love the large inland seas:

"Four" is a cold world (-11 degrees Farenheit) and doesn't yet have oxygen in its atmosphere--- no cyanobacteria?

Planets four and five orbit each other. Five is an ice world with giant fissures and some volcanic activity discoloring the surface:

Unfortunately, Elite doesn't allow you to name (in-game) the planets you discover. In an online world there is, of course, potential problems with vetting large numbers of names for indecency.

I really hope that Frontier Developments finds ways to make better use of the hard work they put into solar system models. It'd be great to name the planet, get a detailed surface map, perform additional surveys, and launch a colonization expedition. Realistically, of course, all these things would take years if not decades. (And the game doesn't even have stations that are under construction within settled space!)